"'It is hard to see how this can be allowed to continue — not only in Tennessee, but nationwide,' said Maya Foa, the chief executive of Reprieve, an anti-death penalty group. She called the failed attempt to kill Ms. Pike 'one of the most catastrophic executions' in US history."

Our CEO Maya Foa writes in the Guardian: "Christa Pike's ordeal in the execution chamber was a visceral demonstration that there is nothing medical or humane about execution by lethal injection. What we saw was the awful, ugly, indefensible reality of the death penalty."

It is hard to see how this can be allowed to continue – not only in Tennessee but nationwide.

When she left the chamber two hours after the execution began, she was alive, possibly brain damaged due to the botched execution, and being taken to urgent care.

The image of the death penalty in 2026 is a woman strapped to a stretcher, in unbearable agony, being tortured by prison officials tasked with killing her who are unable to do so.

What we can say is that when states inject illicitly-acquired, possibly degraded drugs, using an execution method that goes wrong more than any other, these catastrophes are inevitable.

We cannot know exactly what went wrong, because so much happened behind a curtain – lethal injection relies on secrecy at every stage, to hide the violence of the state taking a human life.

It is striking that, after one of the most catastrophic executions in US history, correctional officials are insisting they followed the protocol — clearly something is deeply wrong with it.

How can anyone who witnessed what happened in Tennessee last night claim that executions are constitutional or humane? The state was warned, clearly and repeatedly, that proceeding with this lethal injection execution risked torturing Christa Pike, but went ahead anyway.

Jagtar should not only be released, but the unjust cases against him should be dropped, and he should be allowed to finally return to his family in Dumbarton.

We must also remember that Jagtar will still be facing the death penalty in eight cases against him, despite these cases essentially duplicating trumped-up charges on which he has already been fully acquitted.

While this judgment is welcome, Jagtar is still in custody and we must now watch closely to ensure this order is actually implemented and not obstructed in any way. The conditions attached are likely to be onerous.

This morning we received the news that an Indian court has ordered Jagtar Singh Johal be granted bail.

🚨Amazing news from India this morning! My constituent, Jagtar Singh Johal, has officially been granted bail, after 9 years in arbitrary detention. Jagtar's brother Gurpreet and @reprievehq.bsky.social have worked tirelessly for almost a decade for this. Now it’s time to bring him back home.

25 years on from the start of the so-called ‘War on Terror’, leading human rights lawyer, and Reprieve US Board President, Eric Lewis, has shared his reflections of the “undeniable legacy" of the 9/11 attacks - and the brutal new world of normalised torture and unlawful detention they created:

Our CEO, Maya Foa, spoke to Left Foot Forward about this "attention-seeking bluster" that seeks to follow the example of authoritarian regimes embracing the death penalty, such as Iran, China, Saudi Arabia and Donald Trump's USA.

"The fact that Tennessee is doubling down on this broken execution method, so soon after torturing a man in the chamber, is beyond belief." Reprieve deputy director Matt Wells on the horrifying risk Tennessee is taking by pressing ahead with Christa Pike’s lethal-injection execution this September.